During my personal training, Daniel adopted a very much ‘watch me and see what to do’ approach before telling me to “give it a go”, which usually either went very well or very badly; the latter being followed up by a good-natured “ah don’t worry, it will be better next time!” However, at official IH training courses, much more formal instruction was give so that progress was made at a faster, condensed pace, which was much more structured. At one of these courses I had the opportunity to try Join-up myself (properly!) for the first time, along with a group of people who had paid significant amounts of money to participate and learn. I was keen, to say the least, having seen it performed so many times in front of me at public demonstrations. People who come for courses start as total strangers, but through a shared love of horses they are able to (easily) open up into conversation with each other, with a nervous excitement at the start that is quickly replaced by deep concentration. These are people who are here to learn and are usually the most obvious example of people who need to be taught how to ‘know’ horses. For each individual there is a limit to how much they can learn on a practical front, much is said to be natural talent, but it can be taught to some degree through active practice and ‘book learning’ that was
once so chastised by more traditional practitioners (Lawrence 1982). There is now a plethora of resources, both in manuals and online, which are easily accessible to these keen students. At Julie’s rescue centre, I was actively encouraged to delve in to these extracurricular methods of study:
Have you read her book yet Kirsty? It’s more of a handbook really, so useful. It’s got everything in it. So if you ever have a problem or a question, just grab it. We keep a copy in the dresser drawer and one out in the barn, so there’s always one to hand. She’s so great, she really gets horses.
People very strongly consider themselves as students on these courses and are there to learn from someone more experienced and also from the horses themselves. They are filled with an almost child-like optimism at the thought of all they could learn and achieve. Humans and horses have been in this world together for centuries and will be for many more to come – these people are choosing what they want that future
alongside horses to look like by using natural horsemanship techniques. They want to be better, and the process of learning never stops. In a process such as this, what people don’t know engages with the potential of what they could know. These people are committed to changing how they interact with horses, and this is a very powerful driving force in the pursuit of knowledge. It is impossible to ‘know the other,’ yet natural horsemanship practitioners strive to ‘know’ the horse every time they meet. Choosing to engage with horses in this way, with an incentive to become better horse- people alongside the horses in training, drives people to want to become exceptional – if only in their horses eyes. Most explicitly, these courses are expensive, but people are willing to pay the money to make the entwined lives they share with their horses better.
Our trainer for the weekend was David, with help from his partner Nikki. He began by telling us about his own life experiences, and how his life trajectory had brought him to natural horsemanship:
The change [in me] has been coming for a while, its not like I just woke up and knew what it was all about. It was a rocky start and I haven’t finished learning yet. I think if there has been a change, it’s been too slow and steady
to notice. I hope it changes other people for the better, I think it certainly changes the lives of many horses for the better. Individually they may also have been fine if their owner never discovered Intelligent Horsemanship, but it can’t hurt can it? And then that person may go on to help another horse somewhere, even if only a little through someone else, and so on and so forth. Slowly I think it is making a difference.
David then went on to explain how natural horsemanship training fits a horses
naturally expressed behaviours, explicitly discussing Join-up and how important it can be in the training of horses. His words left us feeling mostly inspired but with a
strange sense of calm that was soon washed away as we all wandered out to the round pen next to the arena and saw the great big metal mesh pen containing a horse looking back at us. It seemed as if the horse could smell our vague sense of nervous
anticipation, and he looked ready to exploit it. Luckily, this horse was not for us novices to train with!
David calmly entered the round pen - ‘the space of embarrassment’ as I was to come to know it later - every movement measured and controlled. The wilful gelding he would be working with was already within the steel circle, watching these moves carefully, a look of tense anticipation etched on his face, ears sharply pricked and nostrils blowing wide; his sparring partner had finally arrived. The gelding was already expecting of a battle of wills, and he looked prepared for a fight. His neck was arched and with slow swings of his head to the left and right he assessed the potential of an escape route, whilst taking in this new creature in his environment. David stood calmly in the centre of the pen, looking away from us towards the horse who stood at the far side - as far away from our small rabble as possible – “Everyone, please meet Patrick”. Hello Patrick. David stepped towards Patrick in an attempt to begin the Join-up process by pushing him away from himself and around the edge of the round pen, but Patrick stepped forwards in the same instant. Was he anticipating the process to come and attempting to skip to the end? Was this a sign of acceptance already, although his head was high and wild still? Or was this a
sign of aggression towards David, the unknown quantity in his private space? It was the latter. David made the snap decision and forcefully moved towards Patrick quickly, arms out and shoulders square; with a defiant toss of his head Patrick cantered off around the edge of the pen deciding that this fight was better saved for another time. This interaction took only a second, and it was only on reflection that these potential scenarios came to light in my mind, but David’s expertise had helped him to determine the course of action he had to take – as a collective group of trainees, we all just stared in wonder.
In comparison to the large live demos that Monty and Kelly perform throughout the year, we were an intimate gathering of humans and horses: We were so close to the action that it was hard to separate ourselves from the tangled connections within the space of the round-pen. We were close enough that it felt like the pressure of our presence was enough to upset the delicate balance of energies between David and Patrick that were at play in front of us. David’s positive energy was pushing Patrick, who was refusing to engage with it and only to run forwards away from it into empty space. Patrick was closed off, so far unwilling to direct his energy towards David. For a second, David took the pressure off to see what would happen: Patrick stopped dead. No longer being pushed along by a wave of pressure, he had the chance to consider the scenario that he was in, but the option of paying attention to David was not yet on his radar; instead his eyes wandered casually over towards our eager faces and the horses in the field beyond. A loud neigh exploded from his chest and David faced him again, flinging the lunge rope out over Patrick’s quarters. A lion. Running with renewed anger it seemed, Patrick circled the pen much more forcefully than before, his hooves digging deep into the sandy ground: and I pitied the person who was to ride him eventually. So far, I couldn’t suspend my belief that he could ever be anything than the wild, whirling, bundle of seemingly uncontrollable energy that was in front if me. But David had hope (and potentially some foresight); “he looks like a lot right now for sure, but his ears are flicking towards me now, he’s coming round, he’ll come right”. Blessed with the same tranquil belief in horses as Daniel has, David pointed out signals that we had missed as the onlookers to a private conversation. We got the gist,
but not the intricate details. It was like listening to a conversation in French for me; my high school knowledge of the language led me to believe that I could understand a simple set of communications, but the less obvious meanings, the messages between the actual words, were lost on me as a non-native speaker. David continued to explain to us what he was looking for, and what we should be looking for when Patrick responded positively. Soon he was trotting gently round the pen, head lowered, all his attention on David. Their dance, a collaboration of energies, was nearly at its climax. Each of them had performed set movements that became distorted and adapted by the others actions. These moments of meeting, these ‘contact zones’, were merely stepping stones in their performance together. Without touching each other - until the very end where a rub on the forehead of Patrick from David signalled the end of their dance - they conducted their choreography together through invisible threads of connection. It had taken much longer than any other Join-up that I had witnessed before, about 20 minutes. Patrick’s sweaty neck and flanks didn’t wholly convince me that he wasn’t just tired of running around on a hot afternoon. One of the ladies next to me asked a question along my train of thought – “how do you know he isn’t just tired?” David replied:
That’s enough for him today, for sure, he’s fried. But that was also much quicker than the first time I did this with him, we must have been out here for about 40 minutes! He’s learning that it’s better to listen. I haven’t hurt him, just given him the space and the time to make that decision for himself. For sure, he’s got a lot of angst in him, his energy is high and he’s desperate to show me that he won’t be bought cheaply! He’s making me work for it too. But he’s listening more, showing me he’s more willing to listen now. We can start having proper conversations soon, a couple more Join-ups and some new tasks will really pull his training forwards now I think. But that’s enough for him for today, it’s a steep learning curve for him every time, it’s all so different from what he is used to, what he expects from humans.
‘’Alright lovely learners, now it’s your turn!’
This was it, our moment. So we all smiled nervously at each other and gestured as if we were giving our chance graciously to the person next to us, so as not to be the first one up on the stage. Wild horses couldn’t of convinced me to be first. Luckily, my friend Lucy bravely volunteered, quietly, and with much muttering - And so her trusty steed was led into the round pen by Naomi, having been secreted up behind us while we were transfixed by Patrick and David. It was a much smaller, less intimidating horse than Patrick, who calmly wandered in and began to tear at loose tufts of grass at the edges of the pen. Lucy’s biggest challenge may have been to appropriate his desire to eat into a desire to work with her. “This is Bee, because he’s as busy as. His mind is always wandering on to something else, the key is keeping his attention!” And that was it, all the instruction she was given to begin with other than, “alright then, whenever you’re ready”.
“Ok then Bee” said Lucy, “be gentle with me”. With the lunge rope tangled loosely around both her hands she stepped towards the little bay horse in front of her. He looked at her then towards us at the far side, his eyes lingering momentarily on David, then put his head back down to eat grass; he was a ‘schoolmaster’ a quiet horse who knew all the ropes, and all the tricks to do as little work as possible. “Be firmer with you body, really square up to him, use that rope in your hands, just fling it out towards him” David suggested. Lucy did as instructed and marched purposefully at him; “go on Bee!” This time he mooched off in slow rhythmical trot – it wasn’t the canter that she was hoping for but it was definitely a start. “Come on, keep going, that’s it”. After a few uninspiring laps of the pen, Bee dropped down to a walk by us, exhaling with boredom loudly. Lucy turned towards David with a look of sad frustration on her face and shrugged her shoulders “well what do I do now?”
You need to bring your energy up! Get enthusiastic, inspire him! He isn’t scared of people so you don’t have to match his own nervous energy, but
you do have to create positive energy in this case. This is a really good example everyone for your own horses, because they won’t be worried by your presence either. But you need to encourage the connection. Horses are badly behaved when they don’t understand, are frustrated, or confused, or scared – so you need to inspire confidence in them. Try again Lucy, but you need to mean it, keep pushing him, get his attention!
This attempt was much better, Bee cantered boldly around the pen while Lucy kept up the pressure – including a running commentary under her breath “go on, keep going, that’s it, go on, go, yes, much better, keep going”. After a couple of well-executed changes of direction (“block his path with your body and push him the other way”) that encouraged Bee to see that his movements were controlled by Lucy now, Bee made the decision to stop running and Join-up with Lucy. However, Lucy’s movements were not smooth like David’s, they were unsure and stilted, which undoubtedly played a role in Bee’s actions, and how long it took him to respond. He joined-up in a very perfunctory manner, as if he was bored by the situation and knew the fastest way to make it all end. It was hot and he wasn’t playing by the rules that Lucy wanted him to follow. Although Bee wasn’t worried about people, he also didn’t care about working with them either. Join-up in this case was used to encourage him to pay attention to people.
When David worked with Patrick before, we were transfixed. His attention was intense and focused - I would hate to be under that stare. While Lucy was working with Bee, there were instances of attention from him that could have been capitalised on, and instead they were missed and left to fester in Bee’s mind. Moments of communication missed by the person affect the horse who then does not understand what is expected of them. Both of them were floundering in the unknown quantity of a relationship that Lucy wanted but was unable to truly convince Bee of; instead they spent most of their time in the pen on different sides of a chasm, shouting at each other across the gap, words blowing astray in the wind. Each was unsure of the others actions and intentions and this resulted in a haphazard, ramshackle, structure to build from. Their foundation was shaky from the start, and lucky at best. Was it Bee’s kind nature
that saved them in the end? That prevented Lucy from looking like she fell at the first hurdle of the course? Probably not: the potential of food back in the stable and some respite from running is probably the main cause, but the experience for Lucy had still occurred. She still learnt a little bit about what it is to attempt Join-up with a horse - to be present, and be open to the horse’s presence. After she left the round pen her, Lucy’s excitement was obvious:
That was amazing! Did you see it? I really thought it wasn’t going to work, I had to keep telling myself ‘Lucy, just keep going’. How embarrassing though, I don’t think I’ve ran that much since I was 18 and I nearly missed a bus, am I sweating? I didn’t know what to do with my hands or body at all, I feel very flushed. Flushed with joy! Oh Kirsty, it really is wonderful. Now I know it wasn’t perfect but still! What a thing to do. For just a second there we were really connected and in synch.
And now it was my turn.
‘’you want me to do what now?’’
I entered the round pen with what I thought was an appropriate amount of confidence – “smile Kirsty, it’s not all bad!” – my equine partner and teacher stood in front of me, waiting patiently. She was a pretty little grey pony, and she